Today is a special day in BlueClaws history. It’s the 10th anniversary of the unveiling of the name BlueClaws to the general public.

It happened in the Lakewood Town Square 10 years ago today, the unveiling of the name. The first BlueClaws logo (changed after the 2009 season) was unveiled in August.

A total of 49 BlueClaws entries were received. The name was first sent in by nine year old Matt Koscielski of West Belmar and Jan Gualtier of Ocean County.

If you’re wondering, ground was broken on the ballpark April 13th, 2000.

Just over a week left on a couple of  special offers. These are good through February 28th, so time is running out to act…

• Book a Bushel package for the 2010 season and receive a free party deck ticket (a $34.95 value). Here is an order form for the package, which comes with free Monmouth basketball and Surflight Theatre tickets, plus your choice of Phillies tickets and AMC movie passes. Bushel options include: Yankees, Fireworks, Pick-Your-Own, Entertainers, etc…
• This one is for our Little League teams…Book a Future BlueClaws or ClawStars outing before March 1st and get two free hours in the batting cage (a $160 value). What better place to get ready for the season than right here at FirstEnergy Park?

So there you go. Just wanted to pass along a bit of a heads up.

BlueClaws Rock (click here). Enjoy.

Big night for us (Tuesday night). Our free Kids Club (click here) went over 1,000 members after just 20 days.

Number 1,000: Alexa of Shrewsbury, age seven. Michael, presumably a brother, was number 999.

The gist of the Kids Club is as follows: Membership is free and there are six special Sundays throughout the season. Those days include Kids Club only perks (like picnics, an autograph signing, first pitch on the field, kids club happy hour [free rides in Clawd's Kids Zone], etc). And every member gets a free ticket to every Sunday home game.

You can follow Buster on Twitter here.

In the accompanying picture to this post, you see two lucky Little Leaguers with Ryan Howard, during his rehab in Lakewood in May of 2007. These Little Leaguers took advantage of the Future BlueClaws program, and others have taken advantage of the ClawStars program, through which teams can play catch on the field before the game. Along those lines,

Any Little League team that books a Future BlueClaws or ClawStars outing through the end of February will receive two free hours in the batting cage.

For more information on these outings, please click here, or call 732-901-7000, option three.

948 members. You can sign up here.

And while we’re at it, you can follow Buster on Twitter here.

In a day and a half the BlueClaws Kids Club has 580 members. 1000 by Valentine’s Day? The Super Bowl? Wednesday?

Big news today folks…the BlueClaws Kids Club is now FREE! For the first time in our team history, the Kids Club, now presented by United Teletech Financial, is free to all children ages 15 and under. You can sign up children by clicking here.

The perks:

• FREE general admission ticket to every Sunday home game
• Kids Club ID card good for 10% off at the ClawsCove
• Kids Club e-newsletter
• Six Kids Club Days throughout the season:

The six Kids Club Days (all Sundays), where we selected a lucky child to throw out a first pitch, one will say “Play Ball,” are as follows:

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Just confirmed from our concessions arm, we’ll be unveiling a (Hot) Dog House in 2010. A hot dog stand featuring dogs named after Hall of Famers. As follows…

• Ernie Banks Dog…Chicago style…mustard, sweet relish, chopped onion, dill pickle spear, sliced tomato, sport peppers, celery salt
• Joe DiMaggio Dog…Italian style…sauteed peppers and onions along with sliced potatoes
• Ryan Express Dog…Big Tex…topped with beef chili, diced onion, cheddar cheese sauce
• Yogi Berra Dog…Jersey style…mustard and bbq onion
• The Babe Dog…Coney Island style…mustard and kraut
• Mike Schmidt Dog…Western style…hickory-smoked bacon and cheddar cheese
• Ty Cobb Dog…Detroit style…beef chili, diced onion, yellow mustard

1/4 lb. all beef Angus dogs grilled and served with chips and a pickle.

Looking forward to it.

As you know, we have a new logo (shown on right) as we enter 2010, our tenth season. The man (crab)  on the old logo, Pinchy, has retired (actually he fulfilled the life long dream of many; he retired to Florida). So we have this new face.

Who is that? Where did he come from? What’s his background?

We sit down with some youngsters and tell the entire story to them, and we recorded it so you can listen too. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to The Story of Clawd.

The good folks at Metromix Jersey Shore are putting on a Best Of contest, and the BlueClaws have been nominated for best area hot dog.

Head over to their site and vote for us here.

The BlueClaws hot dogs were made famous in 2009 through the Kids Eat Free All Year program, which gave out 71,988 (7.95 miles officially) hot dogs for free to area children, ages 12 and under.

• 7.95 miles is: 24 laps around the FirstEnergy Park concourse
• 7.95 miles is: 3 laps of the Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia historic sites
• 7.95 miles is: 4 trips across Midtown Manhattan
• 7.95 miles is: 29 trips from bottom to top of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower)

A personal favorite…if Joey Chestnut, who won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest this year, ate hit dogs at the same rate he did that day (68 in 10 minutes), it would take him 7 days, 8 hours, and 26 minutes to reach 71,988.

Want your son or daughter to play for the BlueClaws, but they’re only 11 and you don’t feel like waiting ten years? You can sign your little league team up as the BlueClaws, and receive discounted BlueClaws merchandise to make your team look like authentic BlueClaws.

It’s part of BlueClaws Across America, a program that the BlueClaws have done in years past, and has been tweaked for 2010. This year, any team that orders at least 12 pieces of merchandise, such as hats, jerseys, or pants, will receive 15% off.

For more information, call Garret Streisel at 732-901-7000 ext 209.

That’s right folks…the BlueClaws have started a Dance Team. The full release…

LAKEWOOD, NJ – The BlueClaws are starting a dance team! For the first time, the baseball team will have a dance team perform at BlueClaws games throughout the season, plus at select community appearances.

The BlueClaws Dance Team is open to girls ages 8-18, and anyone that wants to sign up can participate.

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New year and some new stuff for BlueClaws fans this year, from a ticket standpoint, promotional standpoint, baseball standpoint, and a lot more. Let’s take a look…

Tickets

• Bushel of Yankees…it’s a Bushel of BlueClaws package but includes six games against Charleston, the Yankees affiliate, plus Opening Day…chance to see a World Series affiliate rematch with some young Phillies prospects and some young Yankees prospects.
• Thirsty Thursday Club…10 undated tickets to Thursday home games, plus a free t-shirt and membership card good for drink discounts on several nights throughout the season. Chance to take advantage of our most exciting promotion.
• All-You-Can-Eat…sure, it’s not “new,” but it is different. This package was previously a Thursday-only plan, but now includes a few Fridays, Saturdays, and others. So that’s new. All-you-can-eat hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, chips, soda at nine games. Here is an order form.

Promotions

• Some new stuff here too (click to see all that’s been announced so far)…
• Adult Softball League home run derby
• Brobee and Plex from Nickelodeon’s Yo Gabba Gabba
• Dusty Wathan SAL Championship bobblehead doll
• Hang in there, we’re working on some more nifty stuff too

Team

• Mark Parent takes over as the skipper (click here for info)
• We’ll begin to look at some potential 2010 BlueClaws over the next few weeks in this space

Logo

• Of course we have a new logo this year, which will also mean new uniforms
• In years past, the BlueClaws home unis have had pinstripes…These are gone
• Navy used to be for the BP tops and red the alternate jersey…Now, red is the BP top and the alternate jersey will be navy
• Home whites (no pinstripe, says BlueClaws across chest)…road grays (says Lakewood across chest)…alt navy (says ‘Claws across chest)